1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to apparatus for vibrating body tissues, and especially to apparatus for vibrating cervical musculature.
2. Prior Art
It is known to treat body tissues and musculature by vibration in order to obtain relaxation of the musculature, e.g. to eliminate cramps or generally to make the body organs in question more soft and supple. A particular and very important application of such vibration of the parts of the body is in the form of the effect on the cervix during childbirth or legal abortion. This effect has the more immediate object of accelerating expansion of the cervical opening for thereby facilitating and speeding up parturition.
The treatment can be carried out in such a way that a spoon-like instrument, a so-called spatula, is manually placed against the cervical musculature and for a suited period of time is moved along its surface at the edge portion of the cervix. A periodic relaxation of the cervical smooth muscle is obtained by the vibratory effect.
A known apparatus for the purpose given above comprises a holder with a spatula firmly connected thereto. The holder is put in a state of transversal vibration by the rotation of a rotating body with an eccentric center of gravity about the longitudinal axis of the holder, whereby a dynamic imbalance generating the vibration is obtained. The body is rotated with the help of a rotatable flexible shaft coupled to the holder, the shaft being driven by a separate electric motor over a transmission capable of being coupled for different speeds. The said apparatus has given interesting results with relation to the desired effect on the cervix, but is burdened with certain drawbacks. These drawbacks are primarily bound up with the fact that the vibratory instrument itself is coupled to its driving apparatus by a mechanical transmission in the form of a flexible shaft, which causes the very sensitive manual guidance of the vibratory instrument to be made more difficult due to the stiffness of the transmission shaft. This stiffness also affects the sought-after vibratory character of the instrument.